Community leaders from Adekoyeni, Ilewo Alaga, Abule Tisa and Ajambata in Ado-Odo-Ota local government area of Ogun State have called on Ogun State government to urgently pass into law the bill against land speculators in the State.
The Baale of Adekoyeni Village Chief Tajudeen Sodiya while speaking with newsmen on the plight of his people from the hands of the land speculators during a peaceful protest held in the community said the bill if passed into law will definitely curb the activities of land grabbers and return sanity to the State.
Chief Sodiya also accused some people suspected to be land grabbers of the use of the name of the former Nigeria President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to grab land unjustly at Adekoyeni, Ajambata, AraromiOrita and Oluwanishola (a.k.aAbule Teacher) villages “and failure to yield to their request by any members of the villages, will attract continuous harassment, oppression and molestation through the aid of Soldiers”.
The Protesters therefore called on Ogun State government to take a giant step, just like Lagos State, by passing a law criminalizing the conducts of Land Grabbers/ Omo-onile in the State
“It is our Prayer that Ogun State follow the pattern of Lagos in checkmating the activities of the land grabbers and allow peace to reign in our communities”.
It could be recalled that recently Ogun State House of Assembly made a move to checkmate the illegal activities of land grabbers and speculators otherwise known as “Omo onile” through a bill for the prohibition of forcible occupation of Landed Properties Law, 2016.
The Bill which had scaled through the second reading at the plenary, when passed into law, will curb the nefarious activities of land speculators who often dispossessed people of their landed property.
Chief Tajudeen while speaking on the experience of his people from the hands of the Land grabbers said the once peaceful villages had been turned to a ghost town
His words, “The thugs have continued to harrass us daily, preventing the people from going about their businesses all in the name of seizing one land or the other”.
He stressed the urgent need to checkmate the unlawful actions of the land swindlers who had been violently dispossessing people of their landed property.
He said if there is a law criminalising land speculation in the State, such an ugly development would not have happened.
“It is a common practice among the Land Grabbers to create confusion in and around the community by depositing corpse at the village or robe the members of the village with gun for murder or armed robbery, purposely to have their way into the communal land. Once this is done, they immediately contact their sponsored police officers within the area to raise false alarm, get the villagers arrested, detained them and further get remand order in perpetuity before the magistrate Court which does not have jurisdiction on capital offence”.
“Defenselessly, the agents have turned the villages to their base, and it is beyond the power of the villagers to confront the land grabbers especially with aids and supports of most influential personality within and outside Ogun State. The new trend of event is the use of
Soldiers to harass, humiliate and physically assault the village Heads”.